North Dakota's AI Bulletin Encourages a Written Program Where the NAIC Model Expects One

All insurers authorized to do business in North Dakota “are encouraged to develop, implement, and maintain an AIS Program,” according to Bulletin 2026-2, which the state’s Insurance and Securities Department issued on October 5, 2026. The NAIC model bulletin has a different verb in that sentence. In the text the NAIC adopted on December 4, 2023, which applies to no insurer until a state issues its own version, insurers “are expected to develop, implement, and maintain a written program.” The bulletin defines an AIS Program as a written program, so the two sentences are about the same thing.

The bulletin is from Commissioner Jon Godfread. It is issued, its first paragraph says, “to remind” insurers that insurance law already applies when AI systems make or support decisions affecting consumers, and it sets out the Department’s expectations for how insurers govern those systems. On existing law the verb is “must.” On the written program it is “encouraged.” Another sentence, under the heading Legislative Authority, is about practices. “As discussed below, Insurers are expected to adopt practices, including governance frameworks and risk management protocols,” it begins. The model bulletin’s version of that sentence also says “are expected.”

Sections III and IV of the bulletin each have a sentence that applies whether or not an insurer has a program, and whatever the program covers. The one in Section III says the insurer’s use of AI is open to investigation, market conduct actions included. The one in Section IV, on oversight and examinations, says an insurer “can expect to be asked about its governance framework, risk management, and internal controls” in such an inquiry. Both the bulletin and the model bulletin say in their first sections, with no such condition, that an insurer’s use of AI systems in decisions affecting consumers is open to investigation. The model bulletin attaches the same condition in one place, its own Section 4, to what an insurer can expect to be asked.

The bulletin’s Section IV goes on to list documentation whose existence, it says, will help an investigation. The first item reads: “The written AIS Program or any decision by the Insurer not to develop and adopt a written AIS Program.” The model bulletin’s first item stops at “The written AIS Program.” Nowhere does the bulletin say expressly that an insurer may go without a written program.

InsureAI Wire compared the bulletin with the model bulletin and with the NAIC’s exposure draft dated July 17, 2023, an earlier version that the NAIC did not adopt. In the exposure draft the sentence on the written program says “are encouraged,” the Section III sentence that attaches the condition to investigation appears word for word, and the first documentation item has the same words about a decision not to adopt a written program. The exposure draft also has the sentence on expected practices.

The bulletin and the exposure draft define AI Systems, Bias, and Big Data in identical words. The model bulletin defines Adverse Consumer Outcome, Degree of Potential Harm to Consumers, Generative AI, and Model Drift. The bulletin’s definitions section has no entry for any of the four, though its text still refers to drift and to the degree of potential harm to consumers.

The NAIC’s implementation map for the model bulletin, in the edition stamped “Status as of October 8, 2026,” lists Bulletin 2026-2 among its “Adopted States.” That label is the map’s, and the map says of itself that it “does not reflect a determination as to whether the pending or enacted legislation contains all elements of the model.” South Carolina’s Bulletin 2026-07, dated September 24, 2026, is on the same list and uses “are expected” in its sentence on the written program.

The bulletin mentions neither the model bulletin nor a draft of it. Its background section cites as guidance the AI principles the NAIC adopted in 2020. Nothing in it says which NAIC text it worked from, if any, or why its wording differs from the model bulletin’s. It sets no effective date and no transition period either; its closing line says only that it “is in effect until rescinded by the North Dakota Insurance Commissioner.”